Tag Archives: New Orleans Saints

THe New Orleans Sainta have lost to the Seattle Seahawks. Their bid to defend and repeat their title is ended. Former Ragin’ Cajun standout and Baltimore Ravens player had a great game for Seattle as did veteran QB Matt Hasselbeck. Brees and the Saints could not pull it together for a win. The game stayed close but the dream slipped away. The Saints had led by ten and been down by fourteen. But in the end they lost by five points.

LSU and Texas A&M played in the great 75th Cotton Bowl last night. It was a great game which LSU won handily and which renewed one of the great rivalries in college football as LSU and Texas A&M started playing again after many years on hiatus. When I was a child the games between these two schools were still among the biggest things around this region in terms of fan interest. This was the first primetime game in Cotton Bowl history and was carried on a variety of Fox Betworks I believe but certainly on the broadcast flagship. It was a game in which A&M had a huge opening kickoff return would put up a respectable 24 points. But it was dominated by LSU, and their only playing quarterback on the night Jordan Jefferson and wide receiver Terrance Tolliver, who connected for three touchdown passes. This amounts to most of the equal of A&M’s output and would lead the Tigers to a 41-24 win over the Aggies while 83,514 fans watched in the 75th AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

With Cotton Bowl win LSU (11-2) captured its fourth 11-win season in the past six years. It also won its third AT&T Cotton Bowl in the last four tries. For me this is an extraordinary few days. Thursday night I made it live to the fist University of Louisiana basketball game I have been to since I was a student and they beat Sunbelt conference rivals Troy. I then watched LSU win the Cotton Bowl yesterday. Today I hope and am determined to watch the New Orleans Saints play Seattle in the NFL Playoffs. Quite a three day line up.

This is a rambling sort of blog post about a bunch of different things that have little in common except that I am interested in them right now. This is a sort round-up post in the broadest sense. So here comes a numbered list folks….

1. Despite disavowals of doing so I have recently posted comments again on the Lords of the Blog and The Norton View in response to some of Lord Philip Norton’s posts on those sites.

2. I missed the New Orleans Saints preseason opener against the Minnesota Vikings without a really good excuse. Although this is only a glorified scrimmage (for the benefit of people who do not know our professional sports culture) it is still a bit shocking.

3. China is officially reported as the world’s second largest economy now. My own time in and involvement with China has a somehow slightly different light cast upon it because of these facts.

4. I bought birthday gifts all recent months but I have bought a birthday gift for my niece whose birthday is August 3rd, my sister whose birthday is August 5th, my sister-in-law whose birthday is August 8th and for each of three nephews who celebrated their birthdays together on the 14th of August. These sorts of calendrical anomalies really remind me of how limited my income is these days — but I did my best and hope it was OK…

5.The BP driller for the crucial relief well is a man named Wright with an impressive record and he feels that this is one of the toughest jobs he has ever done. He is also confident that he will succeed.

6. The name of the giant skimming ship that was sent here and did not work well in choppy seas was A Whale. This name has many associations for anyone here like anyone anywhere else. Acadians and the many other cultural groups have many people who use naturalistic names and appreciate them. However, it is also eery for Acadians who see them selves as children of the Jonas in some ways as New Englanders relate to the Mayflower. Jonas is the same personage as Jonah swallowed by (but also arguably saved ) by a whale. Nonetheless, this is not new because almost all sailors who read the Bible use Jonah as an unlucky term and Acadians are fairly unique among Judaeo-Christian seafarers in using or seeing the term distinctly. Neither Jonah nor his shipmates nor his ship were destroyed in the story after all.

7. I had a very nice niece with one of my nieces today. While at lunch we ran into my ex-wife’s paternal aunt’s husband and his son and two of his grandsons. We chatted and I introduced everybody. All of this makes me revisit my past which I am always doing anyway.

8. Both of my brothers who are fairly recently married have wives that are expecting and one nears delivery while another is to find out tomorrow if she is expecting twins. All of this makes me daydream about my future which I am always doing anyway.

9. In the last few days I have bought eggs, bacon, varied canned goods, sodas, some condiments, sliced ham, milk, breakfast cereal, jalapeno and cheese pull bread, frozen fish and varied paper and soap products. In some houses and in this house at other times that would amount to really shopping and stocking up but here and now it amounts to getting oddments necessary to mostly sustain people in using up what we have before it goes bad and postponing the real shopping until such a fairly regular massive undertaking is ready to be undertaken.

10. In life there are different kinds of highs and different kinds of lows. Right now I think I am in the weary not entirely discontent blues.

The New Orleans Saints have won the biggest contest in the sport they play. This makes them one in 43 in reaching the Super Bowl and one for one in winning Super Bowl’s played. The victory in sport will not end all ills and secure all good values but it is a very good day.

Owner Benson lifts Lombardi Trophy

I have seen that all of us here are affected and are rejoicing. There is goodness in having long endured and seen this achievement. There are many great stories from the season and the game.

Tight End Jeremy Shockey Celebrates the Game’s Highest Achievement

I congratulate all the team and all my fellow fans. It is but another part of our journey towards many good things and out of many bad places. There is hope and joy in this land today.

Saints Quarterback Celebrates with his Son After Winning The Super Bowl

It is good for our hearts to see the players and coaches trying to build lives here and help to rebuild a city. They are seeing progress in a region as well. So do we all. The struggles continue but today is a day to look on the bright side of the situation here and in New Orleans.

The last post I put up was an analysis of the Quarterbacks contending for this championship. This post relates to the organizations as a whole. Who will prevail and why between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts?

The Saints and the Colts both have defenses whose official ratings are below average. I suppose that to some degree these teams disprove the old adage that “Defense wins championships”. Of course that is an over simplification. There are a lot of oversimplifications that I will not have time nor energy to decipher in this short analysis. However, since so few people read this blog I suppose you cannot expect much collective bargaining power. I will make a flying passing analysis of the whole organization except the quarterbacks to compliment the first part of my analysis.

2. Comparing the organizations outside of the quarterback position.

I. Lets compare the coaches first. Jim Caldwell is a rookie head coach but has been with the Colts as a coach for eight years. He has the advantage also of having been with Tampa Bay from 93-2000. He should have a great deal of experience with the climate in Florida during this time of year — the human climate as well as the meteorological climate. Sean Payton did coach at Miami for a year or so but unfortunately it was the wrong Miami — Miami of Ohio. However, when the impressive early season with the Saints in 2006 ended, Payton was chosen the Coach of the Year by the Associated Press, the Maxwell Club, Pro Football Weekly/Pro Football Writers of America and The Sporting News. He seems to have just kept improving since then. I think he is up against formidable competition but if there is ever going to be a price to pay for being a rookie head coach then Payton will exact it from the other Payton’s head coach Caldwell. COACH GAME READINESS: ADVANTAGE SAINTS, SLIGHT.

II. The next thing to compare is the Bench. Here I am including the quarterbacks not included in the first part of this analysis as well as all the rest. The Saints have so much variety and diversity on offense that I think it takes the pressure off of any given payer’s relief and therefore strengthen’s the whole Bench. I do not think that Drew Brees’ loss could have been survived in any earlier game and leave them capable of winning this game. However, with Burnell as field marshall I think the Saints could march in to victory if Brees left after a first half lead. It would be hard for them to out gun the Colts but possible to hang on. I think if Dwight Freeny is only in marginal condition and a couple of key Colts (Manning and somebody else) then it will be very hard for the Colts to win. Saints fans have to hope for Vilma and some others to have big games on defense but even so they are a very brad team. BENCH: SAINTS ADVANTAGE, MODERATE.

III. Special Teams is another area to compare. The Saints totally surpass the Colts in punt returning. In almost every other area their special teams perform comparably. I think that the Colts plan on punting very little. That means that the advantage is not likely to count for a whole lot. If Hartley cracks under pressure as he might it would be a foreseeable cost of the key player being so inexperienced and this further narrows the gap beyond statistics. SPECIAL TEAMS: ADVANTAGE SAINTS, SLIGHT.

IV. The last category is the Super Bowl Culture. There are many small factors which make up playing in and winning a Super Bowl that are distinct from the other games a team could play. In each and all of those factors the Saints have little to put up except Sean Payton’s stint on the winning Giants team. Shockey knows about getting there but did not play the game for his ring. These advantages are hard to quantify but they are real. SUPER BOWL CULTURE: ADVANTAGE COLTS, LARGE.

I think that both for the game as a whole and for the organization besides the QBs the final result is too close to call. I am pulling for the Saints but am not picking anyone.

There is a lot to be said about the Saints going to the Super Bowl. First, I am really happy about it. Secondly, when they won the NFC Championship Game against the Minnesota Vikings I did feel that moment of euphoria that comes rarely in a lifetime of being a sports fan. Thirdly, I have loved the Saints almost all of their forty-three years and this is their first Super Bowl. I am and should be very happy for the next nearly two weeks watching the build-up to the big game in Miami. I like that they honor the Fleur de Lis, the outline of the State of Louisiana and the name “Saints”. I like that Devery Henderson is from Oppelousas and played with distinction on the Louisiana State University Football Team. I like the fact that Tom Benson has owned the Saints for a good while and has some history in the area he has built up. I like the fact that recent comers like Reggie Bush and Drew Brees have made a contribution to the local community using their considerable influence in ways that do them credit and are a help to the city, state and region where they play. Jeremy Shockey who is very new is one of my favorite football players and has excelled at tight End. It is a great day and a great occasion and I AM HAPPY!

Unfortunately, I am often a glass half-empty kind of person. There are some glass half-empty aspects of this event for me as well. One of them has a bright side along with its dark side. Payton Manning and Eli Manning are brothers from New Orleans who have deep family roots in Mississippi where the Saints have many fans and they have each taken a team other than the Saints to the Super Bowl. The Team they beat to win the Conference Championship was led by QB Brett Favre who grew up in Kiln Mississippi which follows the Saints and he has taken the distant Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl. In addition Jake Delhomme ( who may retire) has taken the Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowlis an athlete who once played for the Saints and is from Louisiana’s Acadiana region. He was the QB at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette which along with LSU is also one of the schools I can call my alma mater. There have been great Louisiana players and are still such in many places and while I am glad the NFL has provided them with work I am also aware of something too transitory for my taste about this economy and system.

I am glad that the New Orleans and Louisiana generation growing up now will have a team that has distinguished itself but that comes after years of social and legal chaos and various oil booms and busts have remade much of the state and city and where storms plow up the eroded coast and wreak endless havoc. Again, it takes some of the shine off of everything for me. I salute the many achievements of the Saints and rejoice in the Super Bowl contest but many side stories remind me 0f all the things that are different from I might wish were the case in managing this state — past, present and future. The truth is that sport, football, competition and other things related to this do matter a lot to us here. I just wish that over the long view the context were and had been very different.

1. Yesterday was Veterans Day. It was Armistice day in the UK and much of the British Commonwealth. I did watch most of President Obama’s ceremony at Arlington although I had a hard time finding it at first.

2.Tomorrow is Friday the 13th. I am not going to plan much to observe that incidence but it is the fact and one many people will note — including me I suppose.

3. Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday. Give her a call if you know her.

4. My father, brother Simon, niece Alyse and brother’s fiancée Brooke have gone down to Mexico. They will be there through Thanksgiving. Most years we have a large Thanksgiving feast in the House there with different members of the family, missionaries and staff hosting the feast. I have only been to a few of these. My mother and brother Joseph will be joining them down there as well. I am not sure exactly what my own plans will be yet — although I have some ideas in mind. They will have a group of short-term missioners down with them as well and probably all of the family will be back here by December first or second.

5.The UK Parliament has ended or is ending its term and is gearing up for the State Opening. The Queen’s Speech and all the rituals are in advanced preparation I am sure. I wrote a little verse for the occasion:

High Ways of Robery: Acrostic Verse

How dear it does appear to appear a peer.
I presume it would seem queer to disappear,
“George, is Baroness Murphy not yet here?”
“Her ladyship found no kit or gear we hear.”
*
Worthies waiting for worthy wear wearies.
And every chevron must match the ranks
Yet a baroness may fear college dearies.
Students tripping lords as evil pranks.
*
Only few match the lined cap of maintenance
Fur is humble rabbit in stoat’s appearance.
*
Rarely our health scholarly Baroness wears
Our race’s white and spotted skins about.
Because too few serfs, traps and affairs
England has given her to remove doubt.
Ravenscroft and Ede must live as well.
Yes, the Opening by robes all can tell.

6. I did a good number of things with my niece Anika and nephew Soren yesterday. We had a n enjoyable visit and then I went to see the film Amelia. I enjoyed and recommend it. When I got back however there were chores to attend to and my foot which gives me trouble from time to time was in full blazing pain and I overlooked the Country Music Awards which I otherwise would have watched until it was simply too late. I hope to catch some “re-runs” on CMT but it is not the same of course.

7.The weather is beautiful here lately but I am not doing all that well in terms of enjoying it because of nagging health problems that have chosen this time to flare up. Ah well …. Life is seldom a perfect paradise here on planet Earth.

8.The New Orleans Saints are still undefeated. The Ragin’ Cajuns are not completely out of the bowl picture and the LSU Tigers are still ranked.

This is a rambling post rather than a round-up exactly. Yesterday on All Saints I and my parents and many other Acadians and some Creoles of Color were down at the cemetary together but separately doing what a purist would do today — All Souls Day. We prayed and put fresh (silk) flowers at the tombs of our ancestors and relations. The weather was beautiful and the fact that it fell on a weekend and today is Monday had a lot to do with the choice to decorate yesterday for the many who were around. We put flowers and said prayers near the remains of Theo Hollier, Regina Oubre Hollier, Beverlee Hollier Gremillion, Chief Justice Frank Wynerth Summers, Esther Leblanc Summers, Robin Gremillion and Michael Gremillion. That was after attending a mass where my grandmother Beverlee Gremillion was honored and remembered along with others who had died in her church parish this year.

Today I got the great pictures that I am enclosing attaching below from my sister Susanna in northeast Texas. These form a companion piece to my most recent post Happy Halloween.

My Nephews Michael, Dominic, Thomas & Anthony Costume for All Saints

My Nephew Anthony Costumes as Saint Patrick for All Saints

My nephew Michael costumed as St. Francis Xavier for All Saints Day

My nephews Dominic and Thomas costumed as early Franciscan saints Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua

I am able to say that I have not missed any substantial part of the World Series so far but I am afraid that this will change tonight. How can I miss the nearly All Saints Day game of the undefeated Saints? I will try to surf between the two games and probably miss the best of both.

In more All Saints and All Souls themed news the relics of St. Mary Magdalene are visiting our area. Here is a link below, however I have noticed TV station link usually expire after a while so if you are checking this long after I post it you may not see much. Various churches will be the sites of this visitation. http://www.klfy.com/global/story.asp?s=11425089

The rest of my weekend and week are too confused and indefinite for me to deal with in this post. I will update it perhaps. Ye few, ye proud, ye brave, ye readers can check in for more later.

1.The Phillies beat the Yankees at Yankee Stadium last night. In the Fall Classic we use the word shut-out but seldom words like “lopsided”, “trounced”, “slammed” or “routed”. Since such terms or not customary why should I use them. Lee may have surrendered to the Yankees at the little village of Appomattox Courthouse but last night a Lee reminded another set of Yankee of some earlier episodes in that war of the 1860s.

2. Sarah, Kevin, Alyse, Anika and Soren have gone on a tip which is part mission trip, part public relations, part musician on tour and part family vacation. These are the events that are so much part of the warp and woof of my life but I still miss and worry. But I would not choose for none of my extended family to travel extensively.

3. My brother Joseph is attempting to move another house for he and Brooke here to Big Woods from Gueydan. That will make an easier transition for the marriage.

4. NASA launched the Ares rocket in a fairly successful test flight yesterday. THis vehicle will play an important role in NASA’s plans for future spaceflight if those plans are pursued.

5.One of the people who made an impact on my life and whom I have since fallen out of touch with has become involved with a number of projects I liked when I found them googling her name. I am posting the links for those projects here.: http://artists-first.net/ is a distributing outlet for musicians. Then there is a Save Darfur outreach titled fo a Jon Lennon song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEjUQ15lyzk The actual web page eludes me just now. It is also dated because even though I signed it it is a group urging the Bush administration to act. The third thing that this person has become involved in is a charity for young people involving music and based in Los Angeles: http://www.soundartla.org/donors.htm . I am not revealing her name or the circumstances of our meeting but I do recommend giving these things a good hard look. Some worthy stuff.

6. The Saints will be playing on Monday Night Football this week and are undefeated. I hope to watch and know it will be a worthy contest well produced for television. However, MNF is not what it used to be in its long reign of glory on ABC.

7. I think David Letterman’s prediction of Yankees sweep was conditioned his New York base but it was made odd by the fact that it was first aired after a Yankees loss in game one. However, the interview he did with the commissioner was good and contained excellent responses to questions about instant replay, steroids, hgh, the pace of play and playing in November.

Today is Sunday. I am watching CBS Sunday Morning as I write this. I am a bit tired from the thirteen inning American League Championship Series Game Two. I am preparing to go to Mass at the little church near my house and then I have to decide between a distant picnic and watching the Saints play the Giants alone. I am probably going to watch the Saints.

I like taking Sundays easy. I do miss the times when that included spending more time with family, friends a wife or girlfriend than it sometimes does now. But I do think if one cannot waste a good day on things that are not at all work then all of one’s work is likely to be misdirected and to suffer in quality as well.

franksummers3ba.wordpress.com

This blog has over ninety pages of content at the time I registered the domain myself in 2014 after posting and working here for years, many of these pages are equivalent to many printed pages. I since then have been confronted with a higher level of premium that I have not accepted.

One of my concerns in this blog has been the overall set of issues related to intellectual honesty, transparency and also the need to provide access to sources. I will return to the issue of textual sources below but here I have another set of issues that relate to images to discuss first. The blog also has well over 650 posts, some are many pages long and some are brief. In this blog I reveal myself and my background and ideas and also deal with a variety of topical and current events. Many of the posts have images. Most of those are photographs I took or directed others to take. Some are from defunct source contracts and contacts I acquired. Some are from sources made into new art pieces by me. Starting on November 10, 2014 I have used Microsoft Office as a source of Royalty free clip art as well.

There are various features and functions by WordPress or others to help you figure out what is available here and to find what you would like to read or view. One part of the blog which you may find useful is the "Glossary of Terms Casually Defined" which can be found in the list of pages in the side column or by hovering your cursor over the "Acadian Forum Archive" in the list of words around and in the Header. Once the first glossary page drops down then hover over earlier glossary pages to unlock later ones. along with my blogroll there are many other embedded links in my post and these provide some insight into secondary sources that I have been reading, in addition any picture of me with someone or record of a formal meeting with a person will allow the reader to conjecture some sort of communication. But this is only a small approximation of scholarly notation. Assume that I pay dues when I can to the Catholic Church, every University I have attended and the Wikipedia and consult their online resources. Also assume that I consult the CIA World Factbook. Beyond that hope for the best. This is a publication on the edge by a person on the edge in many ways and does not reflect the careful annotation of a different medium.

There is an activist element in this blog which is extension of activity, prayer, evolution and planning in the rest of my own life and thought. You will find ideas such as Physical Geometry, my model constitutions and some other ideas and words I care about in the "Major Themes of this Blog" section of pages in the Header. So far some things like early chapters of my online novel are only available in posts and you can find these in the search function or the category cloud.

I am Frank Wynerth Summers III, There have been many other outlets for me to communicate with the world in the past but not so much lately. There is a cluster of links in the blogroll which you may find helpful in reaching the connections in which I live and I have a couple of pages of links and links in posts you may find over time. You can find out more about me in pages revealed when you over over my name in the header section or in those same pages as listed in the side column. Feel free to comment, only a very small percentage of people commented in the first four and a half years so I am usually able to respond to those who do in relatively timely fashion. This blog began on August 18, 2009.